Cabinet is expected Tuesday to announce whether it will approve the twinning of the Trans Mountain pipeline — which will triple its carrying capacity to 890,000 barrels per day from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion cleared a critical 10-month roadblock Tuesday with a federal cabinet decision to give the contentious national project a new lease on life.

That green light was the answer that many in Alberta have anxiously waited for since a Federal Court of Appeal decision threw the $7.4-billion project into chaos last August. And though Alberta Premier Jason Kenney welcomed the Trudeau government’s move, he said Tuesday afternoon there was more work ahead before anyone should consider it a real win.

“(This) isn’t a victory to celebrate, it’s just another step in a process that has, frankly, taken too long,” Kenney said.

“We’ll measure success not by today’s decision, but by the beginning of actual construction and, more importantly, by completion of the pipeline.”

Flanked by Energy Minister Sonya Savage at the Alberta legislature in Edmonton, Kenney said his government will do everything it can to support immediate construction and real progress.

He’s eyeing 2022 as the year oil could begin flowing through the pipe.

“We need to be hopeful in this province that we will get this done,” Kenney said.

The decision, announced in Ottawa after financial markets closed Tuesday, is the second blessing Trudeau’s cabinet has given to the Trans Mountain expansion in its term. The first approval, in November 2016, came at the same time it rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would have carved out a new route from Bruderheim to Kitimat, B.C.

But the project came to an abrupt halt in August 2018 with a court ruling that the federal government made its initial decision based on flawed consultations with Indigenous communities and failed to adequately consider the project-related environmental effects of marine shipping.

This time, the federal government now owns the pipeline having purchased it from Kinder Morgan last summer when the company threatened to walk away from the project over constant delays.

The expansion will triple the pipeline’s carrying capacity to 890,000 barrels per day from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

Announcing the approval, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said all government revenues from the project would go to Canada’s clean energy transition.

“To those who want sustainable energy and a cleaner environment, know that I want that, too,” said Trudeau. “But in order to bridge the gap between where we are and where we’re going, we need money to pay for it.”

For Kenney, the question now becomes whether Trans Mountain will help Canada demonstrate to the world it is a safe place to invest, create jobs and build infrastructure.

“This is a test for whether Canada truly is an economic union where we can dream big and still do big things,” he said.

There almost certainly will be more challenges ahead.

British Columbia’s Premier John Horgan vowed Tuesday that his government would continue legal challenges against Trans Mountain, though he also said the province will grant any lawfully requested permits to start construction on the twinned pipeline this summer. “Although I regret the federal government’s decision, it is within their authority to make that decision,” he said.

Horgan did not rule out throwing the B.C. government’s support behind future First Nations or environmental challenges, but said he’d consider it on a case-by-case basis.

Not over yet: Notley

Opposition leader Rachel Notley agreed the process is not yet over.

“We’re back to where we should have been,” she said Tuesday.

“Every time there’s a court decision or the cabinet redoes its thing or the NEB redoes its thing, the scope of the area within which the opposition can play gets smaller … but we need to make sure that what’s left is not approached with an exacerbated intensity coming from (Premier) Jason Kenney poking them with a stick,” she said.

Notley wants Kenney to ensure that doesn’t happen by halting attacks on environmentalists and committing to a greenhouse gas emissions cap.

“I’m a little worried he’s going to reverse the trend of approvals that we have seen in B.C., and he needs to stop doing that,” she said.

“(The NDP) made a tactical exception on Trans Mountain in their government, but frankly the NDP is the last group I’m going to take advice from on advocating for effective energy policy,” he said.

Notley took partial credit for Tuesday’s decision, saying her government changed the pipeline debate across the country and increased support for the expansion by “meeting Canadians where they were at.”

That meant educating people about the pipeline’s economic value to all Canadians and demonstrating Alberta is doing its fair share on climate change.

“We were not this far along when we got elected,” she said.

“We are much closer than we ever have been, and I think had there been this combative, ‘We will fight you no matter what’ arrangement for the past four years, TMX would be long since dead.”

Indigenous group slams ‘shallow’ consultation

Tuesday’s announcement comes after Phase III consultations with the 117 Indigenous communities directly touched by the project, but renewed opposition from numerous First Nations and Indigenous organizations in Alberta and B.C.

The Squamish Nation in B.C. — through whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory the pipeline will travel — called the decision an attack on Indigenous rights and the consultations “shallow.”

“The failure to meaningfully engage with rights holders means this government is either not serious about building this pipeline or not serious about respecting Indigenous rights,” spokesperson Khelsilem said in a news release.

“Trudeau can’t keep his promises to Indigenous people and can’t keep his promises to Canadians.”

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, and representatives from the Secwepemc Nation and the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, are also opposed to the pipeline extension.

But Project Reconciliation — an Indigenous-led organization that aims to buy a majority share in the pipeline — commended the government Tuesday.

“It’s inviting First Nations to the table,” said Delbert Wapass, a former chief who founded and now chairs the organization.

Wapass said in an interview he shares Trudeau’s vision of environmental protection and shared prosperity with Indigenous peoples.

Environmental skepticism

Kent Fellows, a University of Calgary School of Public Policy economist, said the fact profits from the eventual sale of Trans Mountain will be invested in Canada’s transition to a clean energy economy signal the government is taking climate change seriously.

“Regardless of how big a contribution (to emissions reduction), every little bit does help,” Fellows said Tuesday.

“This is the federal government doing as much as it can right now.”

But not all experts agree it was the right move mere house after the House of Commons declared a climate emergency Monday.

Kathryn Harrison, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia, is skeptical about the government’s ability to align project approval with taking the climate emergency seriously.

“It’s very hard to reconcile the two,” she said Tuesday, pointing out that the “scale and rapidity” of climate action urged to prevent “irreversible” damage by an October report by the International Panel on Climate Change.

Harrison said investing in fossil fuels to fund a clean transition could leave taxpayers on the hook for a “stranded asset” if the global economy transitions away from extractive energy sources.

Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said Tuesday the approval is “meaningless” without a construction date.

“Today’s cabinet decision gets us no closer to having this vital, job-creating protect than we were when it was first approved two and a half years ago,” he said.

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